Introduction
This document describes how to upgrade the IEC6400 firmware to Release 1.2.0.
Background Information
The Cisco IEC6400 Edge Compute Appliance is an industrial gateway that combines Standalone Ultra-Reliable Wireless Backhaul (URWB) capabilities with a Cisco UCS C220 M6 Rack Server platform to deliver resilient wireless backhaul connectivity. In Standalone URWB deployments, it can operate as either a Mesh Endpoint (Mesh END) or a Gateway to support reliable communications in large-scale industrial networks.
Release 1.2.0 can be downloaded from here:
https://software.cisco.com/download/home/286331621/type/286331613/release/1.2.0
Prerequisite
- When upgrading to 1.2.0 from an older release, you must first install a special TAC-provided image to initialize secure storage on the device.
- Attempting to upgrade directly to 1.2.0 without installing the special image causes the upgrade to fail.
Obtaining the Special Image
Open a Cisco TAC case and provide this for each IEC6400:
- IEC6400 Serial Number
- IEC6400 Mesh ID
TAC provides the required special image (often referred to as the “TAM” image).
Open a case using this URL:
https://mycase.cloudapps.cisco.com/case
Upgrade Process
- The IEC6400 firmware upgrade cannot be performed via GUI.
- Upgrade is performed via CLI, using a TFTP server reachable from the IEC6400.
Prepare the TFTP Server
- Stand up a TFTP server on a reachable IP address.
- Place these files in the TFTP root directory:
- The TAC special image (example: IEC6400_TAM_<timestamp>.img)
- The IEC6400 1.2.0 image (example: IEC6400-1.2.0.5.img)
- Confirm the IEC6400 has IP reachability to the TFTP server (routing/VLAN/firewall rules allow UDP/69).
CLI Command Reference (tftp-fw-upgrade)
From the IEC6400 CLI, the upgrade utility provides these options:
- tftp-server — set the TFTP server IP address
- upgrade-fw-image — specify the firmware image to download and install
- automatic-upgrade — enable/disable periodic checks and automatic upgrade
- check-period — set periodic check interval (hours)
- check-now — trigger an immediate firmware check/download/upgrade
Upgrade Procedure
Step 1:
Run the upgrade pointing to the TAC-provided image.
- The SSH session can disconnect during the upgrade/reboot process. This can be expected—wait for the device to come back online.
- Do not interrupt power during upgrade.
# tftp-fw-upgrade tftp-server 10.122.136.38 upgrade-fw-image IEC6400_TAM_20260128115452.img check-now
Starting TFTP file transfer for IEC6400_TAM_20260128115452.img, TFTP server 10.122.136.38 ...
New firmware: IEC6400_TAM_20260128115452.img. Start downloading...
1M
TFTP firmware upgrade...
WARNING: DO NOT POWER OFF THE UNIT DURING A FIRMWARE UPGRADE
starting upgrading...
Firmware already upgrading.
Rtp6395@5.69.163.198:~# Connection to 14.2.210.110 closed by remote host.
Connection to 14.2.210.110 closed.
Step 2
Upgrade to IEC6400 Release 1.2.0
After the device is back online (post Step 1), run the upgrade again using the 1.2.0 firmware image:
# tftp-fw-upgrade tftp-server 10.122.136.38 upgrade-fw-image IEC6400-1.2.0.5.img
Starting TFTP file transfer for IEC6400-1.2.0.5.img, TFTP server 10.122.136.38 ...
New firmware: IEC6400-1.2.0.5.img. Start downloading...
449M
TFTP firmware upgrade...
WARNING: DO NOT POWER OFF THE UNIT DURING A FIRMWARE UPGRADE
starting upgrading...
Rtp6395@5.69.163.198:~# Connection to 14.2.210.110 closed by remote host.
Connection to 14.2.210.110 closed.
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